Are we ready for some scary good chess?

Got those chessboards out and dust off costumes because the Spooky Festival Chess Tournament held on October 26, 2024 was creeping up fast!   The Tournament Director, CM Alex A., made the pairings each round and Joan Sensei settled any type of dispute that arose during the game. Please give them a respect for the difficult job they do. Special thanks to Kairi & Kanata's mom & photographer, Hiroko A. for beautiful Halloween photos! 

There were 20 brave souls, that came out during our Halloween Haunt from at least 10 schools.   Halloween lends itself perfectly to the artistic elements of the game. Children played four rounds showing fine sportsmanship as well as fine ability. 

The trophies and the Halloween Best Costume Award are presented at a ceremony. 

When two or more players ended up with the same score, we will have a blitz chess play-off, in which champions play one game of five-minute chess to determine who wins which trophy.  The tie-break has done for Class A.  The winners were:

Class A: Kairi Akiyama with 4.0/5.0

Class A: Haruki Shimagaki with 4.0/5.0

Class A: Tristan Chih with 4.0/5.0

Class B: Jino Hernandez Zhou with 4.5/5.0

Class B: Eugene Yataha with 4.0/5.0

Class B: Yuta Yano with 3.5/5.0

Yuzuru Sugimoto dressed as a vampire won the best costume prize.  There's no set in-stone way to be a vampire, especially with the evil one like hers!

Birthday celebration for CM Alex took place during the ceremony. Getting older is mandatory, but growing up is optional. Here’s to never fully embracing adulthood! Happy birthday, forever young friend, Alex!